Author: Steve Pratt

Tuesday in Denver was a remarkable day in long drive – especially for the women, who are incredibly talented right now. While the men put up drives as far as 485 yards on the firm grid at over 5000 feet in elevation, the ladies broke through what was thought to be a barrier far out…

After seeing a lot of drives on Trackman, one can get a good idea on a minimum clubhead speed necessary to drive the ball different distances. Now I know the Trackman chart might read a bit different, but it’s really really hard to have everything perfect unless you are a tour pro who can get…

Most of us curve the ball unintentionally to much and too often. And yet not enough of us can read ball flight and use it to diagnose our swing errors. The curve on a golf ball generally comes from the face to path relationship. For this discussion we will assume center contact for all shots….

A lot of the better players, especially older golfers, that I coach understand quite clearly that more distance for the sake of accuracy won’t help their games. However, they are usually under the impression that you can’t have both. What made Mike Austin unique was not the great distance that he could drive the ball,…

Harold ‘Doc’ Edgerton was a pioneer in the field of stroboscopic photography. You might be familiar with some of his more famous works like ‘Bullet Through An Apple’ or Milk Drop Coronet: Through his capturing of high speed events like bullets and hummingbirds, Edgerton assisted our scientific knowledge of things. Later on, he also helped…

Just like heavy weights at the gym makes our muscles grow and get stronger, a heavier weighted driver will have a similar effect. But we have to be very careful. Since the golf swing is such a complex, multi-jointed, and very specific coordinated motion, we must keep the weight similar to our playing driver. Sure…

In order to create easy speed, the release of the clubhead via the hands and forearms must be performed extremely efficiently. But there is much more at play than just activating the muscles of the wrists. A good handle path will create forces that speed up the clubhead and slingshot the head of the club…

Long before Trackman, the term Smash Factor was invented to show the superiority of the latest titanium faced drivers at the time. But what it is exactly? Simply, Smash Factor is a ratio of ball speed to clubhead speed on a golf shot. The maximum, roughly, that can be attained is about a 3:2 ratio, or 1.50,…

Tim Burke was the 2013 World Long Drive Champion and still a major threat to win it all as he is #4 in the world rankings by Longdrivetour.com. His finals record drive of 427 yards stood until it was eclipsed by Joe Miller in 2016. Burke is a former professional baseball player, stands at least 6’5″,…

The simplest way to increase your clubhead speed is to practice swinging fast. This means out of your comfort zone, explosive, fast as you can possibly go. You can practice with or without a ball. Although I recommend both, it is more effective to have a ball in the way. Although you can use your…